San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art Exhibition Archive

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As a Romanian immigrant to the United States, Emanuela Harris-Sintamarian lives between two diametrically opposed cultures, from a totalitarian regime to a society in which individuality and information are emphasized. Her large-scale artworks convey a sense of fragmentation and tension which mirror her conflicted sense of identity. Borrowing visual language from Eastern European folklore, architecture and cartography, Harris-Sintamarian considers her graphic and energetic images as personal maps which chart her physical, emotional and intellectual journeys.
San Jose-based artist Emanuela Harris-Sintamarian is an Adjunct Instructor at San Jose State University and San Jose City College. Her work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally. She is the recipient of the 2013 Eureka Fellowship from the Fleishhacker Foundation, the 2010 Silicon Valley Arts Council Award and the 2008 ArtShift Award. Harris-Sintamarian has participated in the residency programs at Djerassi, Vermont Studio Center and the San Jose ICA Print Center. She received an MFA in Printmaking from the University of Delaware and an MFA in Painting from San Jose State University.

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Exhibiting artists include; Fritzie Brown, Alex Clausen, Kirk Crippens, Lauren DiCioccio, Mitra Fabian, Allison Foshee, Jonn Herschend, Packard Jennings, Jill Sylvia, Ian Treasure, and Penny Young. Like its television series namesake, The Office explores the absurdity and artistry of objects, ecosystems, culture and characters familiar to office works everywhere. Jill Sylvia’s meticulously cut ledger paper structures transform a nearly extinct material into elegant sculptures. Penny Young turns her obsession with organizational systems - library card catalogs, rolodexes, office files- into works that are liberated from structure and express chaos and absurdity. Kirk Crippens creates photo portraits of the ubiquitous office plant. Mitra Fabian and Allison Foshee explore the artistic potential of staples and binder clips. Packard Jennings appropriates the standard business reply envelope with his unique interventionist approach, and Jonn Herschend responds with an installation that threatens (or promises) to disrupt the ICA’s own office practices.

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The ICA presents Ascending River, Youhnee Paik’s site-specific installation of large-scale painted canvases -- part of a series of contemplative, restful works created as a tribute to the artist’s late mother. Although Paik has exhibited her work extensively throughout the Bay Area, this presentation marks the first time that Ascending River will be shown in California. Paik’s dynamic, unframed paintings are hung from the ceiling like sails and laid out under a plexiglass-covered floor, enveloping the viewer in an immersive other-worldly environment.  The works are complex in color and texture and filled with motifs of light that seem to radiate from the canvases.  Celestial and water imagery abound, as do recurring imagery of ships and architectural drawings of cathedral floor plans. Through the use of these images, Paik makes a connection between the world of experience and the world of the unknown while challenging our conventional notions of space and time.  The installation also includes a place for the viewer to lie down, relax, and listen to music with headphones. Younhee Paik was born in Seoul, Korea and immigrated to the U.S. in 1968 after receiving her B.F.A. from Seoul National University.  Paik received her M.F.A. from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1973 and continued to live in San Francisco for 30 years, working as an artist and raising her family. Today she travels extensively and maintains studios in New York City, San Francisco, and Seoul.  Paik has exhibited her work since the mid 1970s with solo exhibits throughout the U. S. and Korea, including the Staller Center for the Arts at Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY; LASCA Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; and TOTAL Museum, Seoul, Korea. Paik’s group shows include, Tiger’s Tail, 1996 Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy; Rediscovering the American Landscape, Gerald Peter Gallery, Santa Fe, NM; the Schneider Museum of Art at Southern Oregon University, Ashland, Oregon; and the National Museum of Modern Art, Mexico City, Mexico. Paik’s work can also be found in collections around the globe including the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea; the San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, CA; and the Korea Exchange Bank, New York, NY.
Ascending River is presented as part of the ICA’s Sandbox program that provides opportunities for artists to create ambitious large-scale installations. The Sandbox program was created in 2007 to fulfill core value of the ICA’s mission -- giving emerging and mid-career artists opportunities to take risks in their artmaking and expand their creative practices.  Past Sandbox projects include; Chris Dorosz, The Painted Room (2009); Christel Dillbohner, Ice Floe (2009), Modesto Covarrubias, Liminal (2010) and Mike Rathbun, Urgency (2011).

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One Thing Leads to Another presents contemporary prints and drawings by artists who address process and repetition in their works. The exhibition also highlights works created in the ICA Print Center by several of its talented Artists-in-Residence and simultaneously celebrates the art of printmaking and the ICA’s Print Center itself.  Exhibiting artists include four of the ICA Print Center’s Artists-in-Residence: Modesto Covarrubias, Christel Dillbohner, Linn Meyers and Theodora Varnay Jones. Additionally, works by Mari Andrews, Brad Brown, Jaq Chartier, Amy Ellingson, Lea Feinstein, Robin Kandel, Fanny Retsek, Anthony Ryan and Kim Rugg will be presented.
Through repetitive and sometimes systematic processes, the exhibiting artists generate a varied visual vocabulary where one work informs the next one and so on. Drawing on various disciplines, such as music, language, mathematics and architecture, and employing minimal materials such as paper, pencil and ink, the artists present the expansive possibilities that repetition yields in developing a series of works. “As humans, we can relate to methodical repetition in imagery. We find ourselves lost in the recurring marks and mesmerized by the unexpected patterns it produces,” explains Susan O’Malley, ICA Curator and Print Center Director. “The physical act of repeating a mark over and over invokes the elemental and primal practice of mark-making, and thus is connected to the long lineage of human creativity,” adds O’Malley. Printmaking lends itself to repetition: In the printmaking process, artists work in diverse ways on the surface of a plate, which ultimately is the object that is placed on the press. In the development of a series, artists can duplicate and alter the properties of the plate, then repeat the printing process. Re-use of the plate inevitably creates repetition in a series; this rhythmic repetition suggests motion and draws the viewer’s attention through the series. Repetition is inextricable to this practice, and yet difference is key to the creation of a series, since variation and development, and not reproduction, are sought. With the extraordinary works on paper in One Thing Leads To Another, the ICA intends to explore creative repetition and its relationship to the development of a series of works.
The ICA Print Center In June 2007, with the opening of a newly purchased facility in downtown San Jose, the ICA unveiled its state-of-the art, 500 square-foot onsite printmaking studio. Printmaking requires equipment that is both prohibitively expensive and large. The ICA Print Center answers a demand in the South Bay for a professional-quality, public-access facility where artists of all ability levels can come to learn, experiment and produce artwork in a in a welcoming and engaging environment. It is an invaluable resource for established artists and art students who have recently graduated and no longer have access to university facilities.
In addition to serving artists who have extensive experience in printmaking, the Print Center offers artists working in all media (including painters, sculptors, photographers, graphic designers, etc.) opportunities to explore new ideas and techniques. Because the printmaking process involves works on paper, it provides an important means for experimentation. The ability to print an etched plate in various states, re-work a monotype image, or adjust the palette in the printing process supports artistic risk-taking, discovery and growth.
The Print Center is vital to the realization of the educational directives of the ICA’s mission. The Center offers a year-round schedule of workshops for artists of all ability levels, as well as open access sessions that provide artists familiar with the printmaking process an affordable opportunity to work on self-directed projects. Since its inception, this dynamic studio has served approximately 200 artists per year in its workshops and open access sessions. One Thing Leads to Another is supported in part by a generous grant from the Applied Materials Foundation.

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Dos Mundos is an exhibition of paintings and works on paper by abstract artist Tim Craighead who has long explored and exploited mark making and recurring symbols and objects in his work.  Craighead’s visual vocabulary includes repetition and duplication of marks and shapes. Shells, vessels, scribbles, knots, polygons, DNA fragments and other representational and abstract gestures are repeated from canvas to canvas. The biomorphic and architectural forms that populate Craighead’s mostly autobiographical painted and printed works are reminiscent of the structural works of Frie Otto and Buckminster Fuller who looked at models found in nature to develop the ideas surrounding their work.
“When I look at a painting by Tim Craighead, I feel as though I’ve just awakened from a dream, the details of which are rapidly dissipating and what’s left is fragmented residue that continues to swirl around in my head, ” says Cathy Kimball, the ICA’s Executive Director. Craighead’s’ work inhabits that precise space between the objective and the nonobjective world. His paintings and prints are a unique mix of abstraction and acute attention to representational detail. And it is this dichotomy and tension that drives his work. He is interested in the physicality of paint and its expressive potential. He finds the language of paint to be encyclopedic. He pushes, pulls, wipes, scrapes and smears paint on canvas, often revealing his process of editing and refining. Through his work, Craighead provides an entry to a compelling and provocative space that blurs the distinction between the content and the composition, the recognizable and the mysterious.
Craighead lectures in the Art Departments at the University of California Santa Cruz and Cabrillo College in Aptos, CA. He has a B.A. in Printmaking and Sculpture from the University of California Santa Cruz and an M.F.A. in Painting from Columbia University, New York where he was also a Post Graduate Fellow in Painting in 1992-93. Craighead has exhibited his work since the late 1980s with solo exhibits at the Gerald Peters Gallery in Santa Fe, NM; Smith Andersen Editions, Palo Alto, CA; and the University of California in Santa Cruz. Craighead’s group shows include Lost and Found at Savage Gallery, Portland, OR, Yuma Symposium at the Yuma Fine Arts Museum, AZ; Roll the Dice at Cabrillo College in Aptos, CA, Seven, Painting and Sculpture, with The Heritage Fine Arts Collaborative at the Heritage Bank of Commerce, San Jose, CA; and Small Matters at Gerald Peters Gallery in Santa Fe, NM. Craighead was recently awarded the Rydell Visual Arts Fellowship for 2010-2011. In 2004 he was a lecturer at the Visiting Art Lecture Series at California State University in San Jose, CA, and his Suites of Monotypes have been produced by Taller de Gravat Torralba, Girona, Spain and Smith Andersen Editions, Palo Alto, CA. Craighead's work can be found in collections at the DeSassiet Museum, University of Santa Clara, Santa Clara, CA; the Graham Gund Collection, Boston, MA; and in private collections in Shanghai, China and throughout the United States.

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The ICA's Annual Art Exhibition and Auction at the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art provides a unique opportunity for art enthusiasts and collectors to view and purchase artwork by the Bay Area’s rising stars and celebrated artists whose work reflects the scope of the region’s vibrant and eclectic styles and interests.  Silent and Live Auction goers can bid on a wide range of work including paintings, photography, works on paper, mixed media and installation pieces, and sculpture. All auction proceeds support the ICA’s innovative exhibitions and educational programming.
The Auction Exhibition runs from September 24th to October 22nd. An Artist Reception and Silent Auction will be held on Saturday, October 8th from 5pm to 7pm. This popular and lively event features an eclectic mix of works in a variety of mediums that will excite novice and long-time art collectors and enthusiasts alike.
The ICA’s Live Auction gala has long been one of the Bay Area's most anticipated cultural events of the year.  The Live Auction will be held on Saturday, October 22nd.  Complimentary champagne, wine, savory hors d’oeuvres and desserts by the area’s finest restaurants and wineries, including Lange Twins Vineyards, will be served.  Admission to the Live Auction – always a sell-out event -- is reserved for ticket holders. CONNECT AND COLLECT This year, the ICA is taking advantage of mobile technologies to offer an even more engaging and interactive auction experience both in and out of the gallery. A free self-guided cell phone audio tour of the auction gallery includes recordings by the exhibiting artists,  giving visitors more insight into the works on view.  Smartphone users have access to the auction galleries anytime through a mobile auction website that provides event and ticket information, images of the artwork, and audio recordings by the artist.  Smartphone users can connect to the mobile site by scanning a QR code through a bar code reader on their phones or through opt-in text message alerts.
The San Jose ICA’s 31st Annual Art Exhibition and Auction is supported in part by the San Jose Mercury News and Lange Twins Vineyards. The ICA gratefully acknowledges support from the Adobe Foundation, the James Irvine Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation Endowment (an advised fund of Silicon Valley Community Foundation), the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, and Members of the ICA. The ICA is also supported in part by a Cultural Affairs grant from the City of San Jose and by a grant from Arts Council Silicon Valley, in partnership with the County of Santa Clara and the California Arts Council.

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Frames of War*  is an exhibition of new paintings by Santa Cruz-based artist Hanna Hannah that exposes a stark confrontation of terror and beauty. Hannah creates her works using fine brushes, casein paint and mixed media on paper. The exhibition include fifteen floor-length panels resembling wallpaper as well as a series of formally framed works.  Through these paintings, Hannah continues her exploration of embedding images of war and destruction into highly decorative motifs by creating a startling mash-up of floral patterns and idyllic landscapes with meticulously rendered scenes of war and aftermath sourced from the media. The result is a jarring experience as the viewer is seduced by the beauty of the steady, meditative ornamental patterns and then boldly confronted by scenes of human suffering and despair cradled in the center of each painted panel. In describing the ongoing narrative in her work Hannah explains that, “The scenes of aftermath, destruction and suffering [of war] that have made their way into the heart of my work are ones that come to us all through the ever-sharper technological acuities of the mass media. These images proliferate to such an extent that, like the air we breathe, they are never not there for me.”   The works on view in Frames of War were created over a three year-period beginning in 2008.
Hannah lectures and teaches painting and drawing in the Art Department at the University of California Santa Cruz. She has an M.A. in French studies from Tufts University, and an M.F.A. from the San Francisco Art Institute. Hannah was born in El Salvador where her parents lived after emigrating from Germany. She moved to the U.S. in 1957. Hannah has exhibited her work since the late 1970s with solo exhibits at the Schmidt/Dean Gallery in Philadelphia; Braunstein Quay Gallery, San Francisco; and Miami University Art Museum, Ohio. Hannah's group shows include History's Mirror at the Palo Alto Art Center; Collapsing Histories   at Gallery éf, Tokyo; For the Birds at Geoffrey Young Gallery in Great Barrington, Massachusetts; Articles of Faith at the Philadelphia Art Alliance; and Works on Paper at the Las Vegas Art Museum. Hannah's work can be found in collections at the Miami University Art Museum, Oxford, OH; Museum of Art and History, Santa Cruz; and the Palace of the Legion of Honor (Achenbach Foundation), San Francisco.
* In grateful acknowledgement of Judith Butler's book of the same title.

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Now in its 7th year at the ICA, Lift Off presents the collective works of San Jo State University's (SJSU) Master of Fine Art (MFA) 2011 graduates.  This exhibition marks the culmination of two to three years of intensive investigation by students in the Fine Arts program at SJSU and launches the graduates into the next chapter of their artistic pursuits.  
This year’s exhibiting artists include: James Allison, Roderick Ayers, Eric Baral, Nicole Ballere- Callnan, Ryan Carrington, Steve Davis, John Eames, Jessica Eastburn, Ron Garavaglia, Alex Gibson, Dana Harris, Evan Hobart, Melody Kennedy, Presely Martin, Timothy McIntosh, Windy Rhoads, Nancy Sevier, and Nick Tranmer.  The exhibition features sculpture, photography, painting, mixed media and new media.
In conjunction with the exhibition, the MFA graduates will publish a catalogue of their work with essays by Art History Master Degree candidates Sara Dragovitch, Laura Duncan-Hubby, Maayan Glaser-Koren, Whitney Moon, and Heather Peterson.

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Size matters insofar as it tells us something about an object's dimensions in relationship to other things. We understand the difference between what is small versus what is big due to a comparison between them. While our understanding of size is intrinsically tied to human scale, science and technology have opened new perspectives into the cosmic and infinitesimal, dramatically altering the way we understand ourselves in relation to an expansive universe. In organizing Size Matters we selected work that speaks to the conceptual and physical reaches of size. From the monumental to the microscopic, the ten contemporary artists create work in various proportions and forms and utilize scale to challenge and shift our perception of the world around us.
Artists Gail Wight and Klari Reis enlarge the microscopic to render visible what is ordinarily invisible to the human eye. The larger than life figurative works of collaborators Ian Harvey + Koo Kyung Sook are comprised of thousands of small molecular-inspired paintings that suggest the complex building blocks of the human body while Dana Harel’s drawings of enlarged hands show hairs, pores and skin with painstaking detail. At magnified scales, these biological structures resemble one another, implying an interconnectedness of all things.
In their sculpture and photographs respectively, Terry Berlier and Elaine Ling compare our lifespan to the resilient endurance of trees that live for generations on earth. Beneath the surface of Eamon MacMahon’s aerial photographs of vast Northern landscapes and Christina Seely’s stunning images of cities, emerge a narrative of human’s cumulative impact on earth and the overwhelming scale of nature. With their incredible detail and exceptionally small size, Dalton Ghetti sculptures atop pencils and Kevin Chen’s miniature hand-drawn cityscapes evoke a sense of wonder to the point of impossibility.
At some point, numbers become so big or small that they are incomprehensible and abstract. However, understanding size in relationship to our daily lives is essential in solving problems and understanding the world around us. While there are still limits to our knowledge of our universe, humans continue to ask questions and push forward.  Ultimately, the works in Size Matters reflect the infinite promise of human imagination to create, challenge and surprise.

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When Powers of Ten was first conceived in 1968, the world was a very different place. However, despite the introduction of the cell phone, the internet, and the plethora of technology that has dramatically altered our contemporary lives, this celebrated film by Charles and Ray Eames remains profoundly relevant today.
Whether revisiting this classic or viewing it for the first time, Powers of Ten is magical. The film takes the viewer on a thrilling and disconcerting journey to the outer limits of time and space, traveling to the edge of the universe on one end of the trip and to the most inner depths of the human body at the other. Ultimately, the film addresses scale and the relative size of things, a concept that powerfully extends across disciplines. Eames Demetrios,
Director of the Eames Office, explains the importance of thinking about scale in practical terms. He writes, “So many of our challenges today are ultimately matters of scale. To be a good citizen of the world and have a chance to make it a better place, a person must have a real understanding of scale.” By presenting images in measurements we can barely fathom, Powers of Ten pushes the boundaries of how we think about our relationship to everything around us. Powers of Ten is based on the 1957 book, Cosmic View: The Universe in Forty Jumps, by Kees Boeke. The Eames’s enlisted scientific advisors from disciplines including astrophysics, biology, genetics, physics, and particle physics to ensure the accuracy of the film. And, in order to achieve the smooth and realistic motion we see in the footage, the photographs were arranged frame by frame on a 40-foot-long animation stand -- an incredibly innovative process for the time.
In addition to the Powers of Ten, the husband-and-wife team of Charles (1907-1978) and Ray (1912-1988) Eames embarked on an astounding array of enterprises during their collaborative years. While the Eames name is most notably known for Charles’ design of the Eames Chair, together, they were visionaries ahead of their time. Pushing the possibilities of design and materials, Charles remarked that their approach was to “bring the most of the best to the greatest number of people for the least.” Powers of Ten is an important example of their values and practice. Using spectacular imagery, the film breaks down complex ideas into a format that is accessible, exciting and most importantly, relevant.

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Entering Mike Rathbun’s Urgency is like stumbling down a rabbit hole. This bizarre world recalls the magical darkness of the Brothers Grimm and the wondrous imagination of Maurice Sendek’s Where the Wild Things Are. Rathbun’s powerful installation evokes both unease and wonder. On one hand, the space compels exploration, but it also is filled with a sense of foreboding. As visitors in this strange environment, we are swallowed up by its monumental scale and dwarfed by a menacing forest of thorns that appear to burst out of the gallery’s ceiling. With only a narrow passageway around the perimeter, the installation overwhelms the space, making it difficult to maneuver. Even still, our scale in relationship to it is confounding: are we the size of insects in a field or have the thorny trunks taken over this world?
How Mike Rathbun created Urgency is part of an intensive and intuitive process. Once he arrives at an idea, no matter how spectacular or unfathomable, he works with urgency to build it. Like an undying itch that needs to be scratched, he labors frantically until his vision is realized. The fact that Urgency is a physical astonishment and displays the skill of a master craftsman is only part of the equation for the artist. For him, the real challenge is the process - the intensive effort and labor involved in his quest to find answers. He writes, “I am trying to find epiphanies. These are moments when … I seem to be connected to something outside of myself. This happens when a set of circumstances arises and is triggered by something … I then feel an emotional swell that is so profound that it becomes physical. I experience a moment of clarity … a glimpse of something that seems to be the most important thing!
Ultimately, Rathbun is a seeker, an inquisitor pursuing a state of momentary clarity in the creation of his monumental works. Inspired by legends and heroic actions, Urgency presents an environment that is both dream-like and daunting. If only momentarily, the work jolts us into an alternate reality, changing the way we perceive ourselves in this strange place.
Originally from the Midwest, Rathbun currently lives in Portland, Oregon where he is an Assistant Professor of Sculpture at Lewis and Clark College. He received his MFA from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis and his BA from Bethel College, St. Paul, Minnesota. His installations and exhibitions have appeared throughout the US, including Art Gym, Marylhurst University, Portland, Oregon; Franconia Sculpture Park, Shafer, Minnesota; Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, California; Socrates Sculpture Park, Long Island City, New York; and Huntington Beach Art Center, Huntington Beach, California. Rathbun has also been awarded prestigious national and regional grants from the Jerome Foundation, Minnesota State Arts Board, The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts and the Bush Foundation, among others.
The artist would like to thank the following individuals whose hearts and hands were instrumental in the production of this work: Zoe Clark, Caitlin Ducey, Rick Holden, Lewis Feuer, Kelly Kuykendall, Riley Meinershagen, Kathryn Miller, Molly Montagna, Sandra Moll, Meagan Nuss, Kim, Melissa & Ameilia Rathbun, Steve Rathbun, Sonia Stolfo, and Kyle Thompson.
Urgency is generously supported in part by an Applied Materials Excellence in the Arts Grant, a program of the Arts Council of Silicon Valley.

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The first large-scale retrospective exhibition of works by San Jose artist Tony May includes painting, sculpture and site-specific interactive installations. By presenting carefully curated pieces from public and private collections, May’s own archive, new works and recreations of past temporal or site-specific projects that have been lost over time, the exhibition brings long-overdue recognition to May as a Bay Area art treasure in his own right.
“Since coming to the ICA ten years ago, I have wanted to present Tony’s work,” says ICA Executive Director, Cathy Kimball. “Throughout our 30-year history, the ICA has dedicated resources, time and space to exceptional but under-recognized, mid-career artists in an effort to generate meaningful exposure for their work. And, with that focus, Tony was an appropriately deserving and exciting candidate for this opportunity,” explains Kimball.
May uses a wide range of media in his artmaking. His work often takes the form of site-responsive installations and has a strong leaning toward the conceptual, the quasi-functional and the whimsical. May’s dedication to craftsmanship and personal mantra of encouraging hands-on involvement of the artist in all aspects of the creative process has been a trademark approach throughout his long career. Borrowing from his childhood experiences growing up on a farm in rural Wisconsin as a dyed-in-the-wool D-I-Yer and tinkerer, May has spent a lifetime recycling and re-interpreting familiar ideas, concepts and materials including books, and ordinary household objects in his work. This expansive exhibition frames and illuminates the artist’s longtime personal and professional obsessions and informs and delights visitors at every turn.
Paintings (this gallery on view thru February 12) May is one of the Bay Area’s most notable photo-realist painters. May’s paintings are photo-based and documentary in nature. They attempt to capture, in compact form, what May considers to be significant objects, places or moments in time and preserve them for future reflection. The exhibition includes a selection of paintings from the artist’s Home Improvement series created from the 1970’s through the 1980’s when May was renovating his home in downtown San Jose. Pieces from the artist’s T.House series created in the early 1990’s which document the construction of May’s T-House in his San Jose backyard, and several pieces from the Works Lost in France series dating from 2000 to 2001 is on view.
Site-Specific Installations Two site-specific installations showcase May’s unique approach to installation art. The first, a large-scale hand-crafted T-shaped structure entitled ICA Periscope/Lantern/Marquee is fabricated using bamboo, recycled plastic, mirrors and lighting. The work is installed above the doorway on the exterior of the gallery. Created by May as the calling card for the show, this MacGyver-esque showpiece invites visitors to view the work and their surroundings both inside and outside the gallery in wonderfully unexpected ways. This piece recalls the elaborate installation piece May created in collaboration with artist Bob Jones during their joint residency at the Capp Street Project in San Francisco in 1985.
The second large-scale installation piece on loan from the San Jose Museum of Art is Variable Book Construction (Bookmobile), 1991-1995. Commissioned by the San Jose Museum of Art for the entrance lobby of the new wing of the museum, this interactive piece is made with books. Its title plays on the earlier function of the museum’s historic wing as the city library. It takes on a new character in its adaptation for the space at the ICA.
Sculpture A number of May’s sculptural works representing key artistic periods in his career are alos on view including altered found objects, lanterns and maquettes. May’s structure, the T. Tree House takes center-stage in the show’s sculpture gallery. Originally designed for an exhibition in Hawaii and built in collaboration with artist Lonny Tomono, this structure has been carefully deconstructed and reconstructed for this exhibition. The T. Tree House refers to an ongoing work, T. House, a structure Tony has built in his backyard.
Renny Pritiken notes in his exhibition catalogue essay, “The T. House in Tony May’s backyard should be considered along with David Ireland’s house as a major Bay Area icon of the past 25 years. It is an amalgam of many things: a work shed, a studio, a gigantic lantern, a greenhouse, a Japanese teahouse, a backyard garage.”
In conjunction with the exhibition, the ICA has published a catalogue (edition of 100) with a critical essay by Renny Pritikin, Director of the Richard L. Nelson Gallery and Fine Arts Collection at UC Davis. The catalogue is for sale at the ICA and will be presented as a gift to May’s many collectors who contributed works to the exhibition.
Tony May, Emeritus Professor of Art, taught at San Jose State University from 1967 until 2005. He has also taught at the University of Wisconsin- Sheboygan, Sheffield City Polytechnic in Sheffield, England and Santa Clara University in Santa Clara, California. Born in Mineral Point, WI in 1942, he received his MFA degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he studied with Warrington Colescott, Steven French and Don Reitz.
Tony May’s work has been shown widely in California including shows at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco Art Institute, 80 Langton Street, Capp Street Project, San Jose Museum of Art and the deSaisset Museum. He has also exhibited nationally and internationally in England, France, Japan and Thailand.

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Main Gallery thru Feb 26 Focus Gallery & Cardinale Project Room thru Feb 12 
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/sjica/sets/72157625571221570/" target="_blank">View works on Flickr</a>
"Easily one of the best art exhibitions I've seen in  years." - Ben Marks, KQED <a href="http://www.kqed.org/arts/visualarts/article.jsp?essid=39602">Read the review here </a>
"The ICA galleries are filled with cerebral gems" - Laura Cassidy Rogers, Art Practical <a href="http://www.artpractical.com/review/tony_may_old_technology/" target="_blank">Read the review here</a> 
Old Technology #1 on Kenneth Baker's 2011 Top Ten list <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/12/25/PKJ81M99FT.DTL" target="_blank">Read it here</a> <a href="https://app.etapestry.com/cart/SanJoseInstituteofContempo/default/item.php?ref=4452.0.33867783" target="_blank">BUY THE CATALOGUE HERE ($75) </a> signed edition of 100 
<a href="uploaded/files/gallery_guide_tony_may.pdf" target="_blank">Download the Exhibition Guide</a> <a href="uploaded/files/pritikin_js01.pdf" target="_blank">Download the Catalogue Essay </a> Why Aren't You Famous Yet? by Renny Pritikin, Director, Richard L. Nelson Gallery and Fine Arts Collection at UC Davis
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/sjica/sets/72157625122262814/" target="_blank"> </a>

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The ICA presents its signature Annual Art Exhibition and Auction. This comprehensive exhibition presents more than 150 works by the finest contemporary artists in the Bay Area. The exhibition opens on October 1st with a lively reception featuring live music, wine and light cocktail fare. The evening culminates with a Silent Auction of a selection of incredible works in the exhibition that will excite new, novice and long-time art collectors and enthusiasts. Admittance to the Opening Reception and Silent Auction is free. To bid in the Silent Auction, guests must purchase a $30 bidder card.
The Live Auction Gala Event -- one of the Bay Area's longest standing and anticipated art events of the year will be held on Saturday, October 23rd. To accompany the Live Auction gala evening, champagne, wine and savory hors d’oeuvres donated by some of the South Bay’s finest wineries and restaurants will be served. Admittance to the Live Auction is reserved for ticket holders only.
The Annual Art Auction at the ICA provides a unique opportunity to art lovers and collectors who are looking for world class artwork created by the region’s most established artists and its rising stars whose work reflect the scope of the Bay Area’s vibrant and eclectic styles and interest. Silent and Live Auction goers can bid on a range of work including paintings, photographs, mixed media and installation pieces, and sculpture. All proceeds from the auctions support the ICA’s innovative exhibitions and educational programming.
The ICA's 30th Annual Art Auction is made possible in part throught the generous support of<a href="http://www.langetwins.com/" target="_blank"> LangeTwins Winery and Vinyards</a>
and these fine establishments:
Affintiy Restaurant & Bar Aqui Cal-Mex Grill Bayonne Restaurant Billy Berk’s Café Too! Connoisseur Coffee Co. Eli Thomas Menswear Emile’s Restaurant Eulipia Restaurant and Bar Fleming Jenkins Vineyards & Winery Il Fornaio Joseph George Wines Loft Bar and Bistro Melons Catering & Event Planning Morocco’s Restaurant Mortons the Steakhouse No Way Jose by PSRT PF Chang’s Thea Mediterranean

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The introduction of the digital camera over 20 years ago revolutionized photography. For novices and professionals alike, the computer has replaced the darkroom in the 21st century. However, even with the sophisticated advances of the digital age, a growing number of artists are embracing 19th century photographic technologies to make their work.
Paradoxically, technology has greatly contributed to the enthusiasm, interest and renewal of antiquated photographic processes. Many artists utilize digital tools along with historic practices to make hybrid works.
Digital printing enables artists to create large negatives for contact printing and play with scale in ways that were previously unavailable. Active online communities provide a forum to share recipes and practices.
Part chemist, artist, historian and experimentalist, the photographers in this show share an interest in utilizing old technology to create new imagery. Exhibiting artists include: Stephen Berkman, Linda Connor, Binh Danh, Nathaniel Gibbons, Joy Goldkind, Andreas Hablutzel, Rachel Heath, Robin Hill, Kerik Kouklis, Chirs McCaw, Beth Moon, Ben Nixon, Ron Moultrie Saunders, Michael Shindler, and Brian Taylor.

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In true Silicon Valley fashion, Lubell has created his low-tech machines in his San Francisco garage for over twenty years. However, instead of working with computers, software, and electronics, the artist collaborates with pine wood and ancient technologies—cranks, pulleys, and springs, for instance—to build the immersive and interactive works. The deliberate handmade aesthetic, along with the ingenuity of the complex designs, give Lubell’s works the appearance of a different era—a time of the master craftsmen and old technology. The creations are in fact deeply rooted in the artist’s research and explorations of historic scientific instruments and obsolete machinery.
Lubell’s Conservation of Intimacy serves as a stage where people are invited to touch and play with the work—an unlikely, but thrilling, proposition in the context of the “do not touch” policy in the gallery and museum environment. As participants crank, rock, and create sounds with the work, they tap into what the artist describes as the “vast reservoir of knowledge stored in each of our bodies,” and become important collaborators in the realization and understanding of this massive installation.
With a background in engineering and psychology, Lubell designs his interactive wood machines through experience. He begins with a question—about intimacy, the nature of being human, the theory of entanglement—and looks to archaic technology to manifest these complicated concepts into a mechanical device. His trial-and-error process results in creations that are fragile-looking yet sturdy, poetic and surreal.
Not until the works come in contact with us, the visitors of the exhibition, do they truly come to life. In Lubell’s world of art making, every person’s participation is significant. The works entice the senses—they look and feel like elaborate playground diversions and are incredibly pleasurable to explore. In Conservation of Intimacy, two people rock on a suspended bench while their motions are recorded as a graph by a pen marking a roll of paper (which is moved by the third participant pedaling on a stationary wooden bicycle). With minimal instruction, visitors intuitively discover and activate the mechanics of the multifaceted machines. As participants are absorbed in the rattle and hum of the work, they delight in being alive and engaged in the wonder of life.
Much of Lubell’s work is inspired by the early medical devices of French physiologist Etienne Jules Marey (1830–1904). A mechanical genius, Marey developed myriad sophisticated pneumatic contraptions in the late nineteenth century to precisely measure movement and make visible what is otherwise invisible, including a machine that simulated a heart beat and a pulse-reading device that was a precursor for medical imaging. The artist writes, “What I like about Marey's early medical apparatus is that while they reflect a naive faith in mechanical models for biology they also embody the evolutionary design necessary to get realistic results. They were designed by experience just as we ourselves are
Born in Baltimore, MD Lubell is based in San Francisco, CA. His interactive installations have exhibited nationally and internationally, most recently at FACT, Liverpool and V2 in Rotterdam. Lubell has received numerous awards including and Award of Distinctio n from Ars Electronica, an Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation grant in 2009 and Pollack Kranser Foundation Grants in 2002 and 1991.

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Libby Black’s Work Out sculptural installation makes its California premiere at the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art. Work Out, Black's sculptural installation is on view from April 10 through July 3 in the Cardinale Project Room.
Work Out is a life-sized paper replica of a home gym replete with famous fashion brand accessories. Using paper, paint and hot glue, Black’s Work Out presents a fantasy world of luxury goods. The artist has created a fully equipped shrine to fitness and consumerism including a Prada stationary bike, a Louis Vuitton bench press, a Burberry punching bag and a Chanel weight belt. The individual pieces are exact replicas of traditional workout equipment yet the luxury brand identification and detailing in the pieces reveal the decidedly DIY nature of the work. As a result, the hand-made quality of the perfectly faux equipment and accessories reveal the seduction and deception inherent in the work.
Born in Ohio and raised in Texas, Libby Black now lives and works in Berkeley, CA. She received her MFA from the California College of Arts and Crafts in San Francisco in 2001, and received her BFA from the Cleveland Institute of Art in 1999. Her work has been shown extensively throughout the United States in solo and group exhibitions, and is held in both private and public collections in California, New York and Europe, including the Orange County Museum of Art, the Oakland Museum of Art, and The Chaney Family Collection in Houston, Texas. Work Out is supported in part by Wanda Kownacki.

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As the first emerging artist to participate in the ICA’s series of immersive solo exhibitions, Covarrubias joins established Bay Area artists including Theodora Varnay Jones, Christel Dillbohner, Chris Dorosz, Lewis DeSoto and Tim Horn, who have also presented large-scale installations in the ICA’s Focus Gallery. 
As a child, Covarrubias built forts, houses and spaceships – drawing elaborate plans and maps to render his creations.  He has long been involved in investigations of space and how it can alter and be altered by one’s mental state.  And just as the artist created forts, rooms and spaces as a child to transport himself into fantasy worlds, he employs similar processes today to explore and portray his present-day emotions and experiences. Covarrubias’ multi-media pieces are constructed primarily from paper attached or hung from a room–sized armature made from materials including steel wire, monofilament, wood, and PVC pipe. Modesto Covarrubias is a San Jose-native who lives and works in Berkeley, CA.  Covarrubias recently graduated with an MFA in Studio Art from Mills College, and in 2005 earned a BFA in Photography from the San Francisco Art Institute.  Covarrubias’ work has been exhibited in Italy, New York City and throughout the Bay Area.
Liminal is supported in part by a grant from the Castellano Foundation. Additional support is also provided by the James Irvine Foundation.

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The Lift Off exhibition marks the culmination of two to three years of intensive investigation by students in the Fine Arts program at SJSU and launches the graduates into the next chapter of their artistic pursuits. The show features sculpture, photography, painting, mixed media and new media.
This year’s exhibiting artists include: Kirkman Amyx, Pernilla Andersson, Tracy Burk, shiloh burton, Yunan Cao, Wendy Crockett, Jim Edgeworth, Johnny Hanna, Hedwig Heerschop, Barbara Horiuchi, Trevor Koch, John Pickelle, Beverly Rayner, Elizabeth Robera, Danielle Siembieda, Susan Suriyapa, and Hongbiao Wang. “Lift Off is an extension of the ICA’s commitment to provide meaningful opportunities for emerging artists to present their work to the public,” says Susan O’Malley, ICA’s assistant curator. “We are always excited to present the work of new artists and we are fortunate to have developed a wonderfulcollaboration with a diverse group of art makers andthinkers who reflect the cultural vibrancy of ocommunity,” adds O’Malley. In conjunction withthe exhibition, the MFA graduates will publish a catalogue of their work with essays by Art History Master Degree candidates Tariq Abdul’Wahad, SarahGoodman, Heather Peterson, Maayan Glaser’Koren anSamantha Johnson.

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The San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) presents, By A Thread, an exhibition of artwork by emerging and mid-career Bay Area artists who create unexpectedly nostalgic, and poetic works using thread as their primary medium.
The show includes work from artists Jody Alexander, Susan Taber Avila, Diem Chau, Lauren DiCioccio, Robin Hill, Nina Katchadourian, Lisa Kokin, Beili Liu, Katie Lewis, Emil Lukas, Victoria May, Ali Naschke-Messing, Lisa Solomon, Hadi Tabatabai, Nicola Vruwink, and Allison Watkins.
 “By a Thread is not an exhibition about precise or technically proficient sewing, embroidery or any other form of needlework,” says Cathy Kimball, ICA Executive Director. “Rather, it is an exhibition featuring contemporary art that uses thread as a medium to communicate the ideas, visions, and conceptual explorations of the participating artists. In many cases, the artists included in the exhibition have found that the ubiquitous and centuries-old process of stitching can be used in innovative ways to create something new,” explains Kimball. Thus, the exhibition features the work of artists who give fresh consideration to the value and function of traditional handiwork. The show includes small two-dimensional pieces and large-scale installations, as well as a wide variety of sculptural works.

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When Ted Fullwood first used chenille sticks (otherwise known as pipe cleaners) while teaching art to a group of middle school students almost ten years ago, he became hooked. Since then, he has spent countless hours weaving together these flexible, colorful and fuzzy sticks that are best known for their use in children’s craft projects, not for creating large-scale sculptures. He describes the pleasure of weaving as “going into the zone,” where his hands intuitively operate and his mind enters a meditative state to create his artwork.
Considering the low-tech weaving process and materials, it may seem surprising that the title of this show is Energy Machines.  However, for Fullwood, the wildly abstract and colorful objects emit energy as a machine performs an activity. After all, he remarks, “if art is good, it will start to permeate energy to the people that view it. (While) a lot of that energy is just imagined, sometimes imagined energy is the best kind.”
Fullwood describes his aesthetic as excessive and obsessive, where “too much is never enough.” Throughout his life, he has created this way, whether in clay, text, mosaics or textiles. Growing up in Palo Alto, he went to an alternative high school and spent all of his time in the ceramics studio. In college at UC Santa Cruz he studied Creative Writing. Though he admits he may not have been a great writer, he discovered great pleasure in using words and allowing language to spill out of his imagination and onto the page. When he moved into his home in San Jose, after he received his MFA at San Jose State, he embarked upon a huge project of covering the walls in his house with his own fantastically colored tiles. While he considers this to be a work-in-progress, nearly every square inch of his home has been embellished. Working in this way and finding the place where his mind and hands “go into the zone,” Fullwood makes objects that are both wonderfully original and incredibly familiar.

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The annual Monotype Marathon exhibition is on view for three weeks at the ICA and culminates with a silent auction fundraising event on the last day of the show. 
The Monotype Marathon event begins with an intensive weekend of art making by more than seventy-five professional artists in printmaking studios throughout the Bay Area. These artists are invited by the ICA to produce a number of monotypes during the marathon printmaking weekend event. The ICA selects the best work produced by each of the artists to showcase in the exhibition and to offer for sale in the silent auction. Proceeds raised from the auction go toward the ICA’s exhibitions and educational programs.
The ICA seeks support for the Monotype Marathon from its members and from the community by selling $300 sponsorships that enable artists to participate in the printmaking workshops. Each sponsorship donation serves as the opening bid on any of the works in the auction. All Monotype Marathon sponsors are guaranteed to receive a unique work on paper from the auction.
The monotype is a one-of-a-kind work on paper. It is a painterly form of printmaking requiring ink, a surface on which to print, paper and a press. The artist uses a variety of tools to apply the ink and sometimes adds collage, transfers, fabric and other materials.

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This exhibition provides visitors with a unique opportunity to see the breadth, depth and evolution of Varnay Jones’ work over the past fifteen years. Comprised of two-and three-dimensional works including drawings, constructed works and re-conceptualized ready-made pieces, Manifold reflects the artist’s systematic exploration of repetition, form and material.
By using opposing media such as paper and rocks, fiberglass and beeswax, clay and gauze, Varnay Jones creates objects infused with a palpable tension between the conflicting nature of the materials and the equilibrium of their carefully balanced compositions. The resulting forms are open-ended and ambiguous, while also evoking concepts related to invisibility, emptiness, memory, perception, and time. The artist’s careful layering of translucent and transparent materials traps light within her works, creating restlessness between what is revealed and what is concealed within the multiple layers of each piece. The objects often reveal subtle hints at their hand-made quality despite the precision of their construction.
“Throughout our 29-year history, the ICA has maintained a reputation for discovering new talent as well as providing meaningful exposure for under-recognized mid-career artists,” says ICA Executive Director, Cathy Kimball. “During the past 30 years, Theodora has created a diverse body of work that includes sculpture, drawings, prints, assemblages and installations. Manifold presents an exciting and unique opportunity to see and experience how this accomplished artist’s work has evolved during the last decade," explains Kimball
Hungarian-born Varnay Jones has lived in San Francisco for over thirty-five years. She received her BFA and MFA from the Academy of Fine Arts in Budapest. Her works have been exhibited extensively, nationally, and in Europe and Asia and she has received numerous awards and grants.

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The ICA presents Afterlife, a group exhibition of works created to breathe new life into re-purposed materials and objects. Guest curated by Kathryn Funk, the show includes sculpture, video, and multi-media work from artists Claudia Borgna, Mark Fox-Morgan, Elisabeth Higgins O'Connor, Lisa Kokin, Charlotte Kruk, Robert Larson, Scott Oliver, Beverly Rayner, and Ann Weber. 
The artists represented in Afterlife take advantage of cast-offs from our contemporary lives. With a conscious eye to the materiality of the chosen discards, items from the street, junkyards and second-hand stores are transformed into fresh, inspired creations that give rise to thoughtful consideration and interpretation.
Even before the green recycling revolution took hold, artists were reusing and re-purposing found materials,” says Afterlife curator Kathryn Funk. “When an object has been discharged from its original purpose it still carries some association with its past. When that association is altered it takes on new meaning,” explains Funk.
Exploring new meanings and new lives of discarded and re-used materials is the central focus of the artists’ works on view in Afterlife.
London-based artist Claudia Borgna has been collecting and using plastic bags as an inspired muse in her art for several years, carefully gathering and using them after each installation or performance in a different configuration. Borgna’s work is on view in Afterlife and Night Moves – after dark video art programming presented in the ICA’s front windows.
Mark Fox-Morgan uses paper – a tree by-product— cast as beams for his massive house-like structure. The beguiling skeleton appears remarkably strong despite its extremely fragile nature, thus calling into question the nature and exploitation of its source. Elisabeth Higgins O’Connor and Lisa Kokin find inspiration in materials scavenged from flea markets and thrift stores. Higgins O’Connor uses discarded fabrics of all sorts and stitches together life-sized anthropomorphic stuffed animal creatures. Kokin uses books and the book format; dissecting, reassembling and pulping them to express new ideas and her own personal, political and cultural views. Charlotte Kruk salvages and sews product wrappers side by side to create new textiles in the form of wearable art. Robert Larson gathers and dissects tossed cigarette packages and match books to make visually stunning constructed paintings of rich color patterns, hues and textures, with the dissected paper material.
Conceptual artist Scott Oliver alters everyday objects, carefully crafting them into a unique state that undermines their original function but never erases the original object’s identity. Beverly Rayner manipulates all kinds of discarded items and constructs new roles for them in her art as she explores how memory distorts the truth. Ann Weber transforms cardboard boxes pulled from dumpsters into elegant, playful biomorphic forms.

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The ICA presents the work of nine Bay Area artists in its NextNew exhibition that features work from emerging talent on the region’s contemporary art scene. This year’s show subtitled Green, surveys fresh perspectives on climate change and related environmental and conservation issues.
Artists represented in the exhibition include Michelle Blade, Colette Campbell-Jones, Misako Inaoka, Vanessa Marsh, Carson Murdach, Sandra Ono, Ryan Pierce, Rebecca Rothfus, and Michael Ryan.
This year’s NextNew artists are recent graduates of regional MFA programs who reflect on “green” as source material for their ideas and work. “One of the distinguishing characteristics of this year’s show is how the artists have succeeded in marrying their conceptual goals with their chosen materials,” explains Cathy Kimball, ICA Executive Director.
On view is work in a range of mediums, including miniature sculptures of invented creatures by Misako Inaoka, and Michael Ryan’s life-size floating, breathing specters on life-support. Painters Michelle Blade’s, Carson Murdach’s and Ryan Pierce’s richly-rendered paintings depict apocalyptic dreamscapes, post-industrial landscapes, and historically-referenced seascapes devoured by urban sprawl. Digital photographic collages by Colette Campbell-Jones and mixed media pieces by Vanessa Marsh shine a spotlight on the intentional and unintentional footprints left by visitors in once remote and uninhabited natural settings.
“The big, unwieldy topic of ‘green’ encompasses everything from re-using lunch bags to halting global warming,” muses ICA Assistant Curator, Susan O’Malley. “To successfully tackle this theme we selected artists who are remarkable in part by how they personalize the topic and keenly engage the viewer by presenting curious combinations of beauty and destruction, natural and man-made materials, and classic and contemporary subject matter.”

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Ice Floe is a solo exhibition featuring a large-scale installation, and multi-media prints and paintings by artist Christel Dillbohner. Referencing the melting glaciers of the Arctic and Antarctic regions, the work presents a visual exploration of humanity’s impact on the natural environment. The installation will consume the Focus Gallery, inviting viewers to navigate their way around the space. The work is comprised of thousands of suspended cone-shaped objects dipped in shades of blue, white and green wax and hovers just above the floor to create an immersive environment reminiscent of a majestic arctic landscape. The piece is intended to suggest a parallel between the physical landscape, created over millions of years by the movement of earth, wind, and water, and our own inner landscapes, formed by layers of personal experiences gathered over the course of a lifetime.
In addition to exploring the ways in which human behavior has damaged the environment, Ice Floe reflects the Artist’s interest in human relationships with the landscape. “Christel is fascinated with the people who live in harsh arctic locales as well as the human desire to explore these mysterious lands,” explains ICA Executive Director and Chief Curator, Cathy Kimball. “This work draws on Christel’s observations of the quiescency of the arctic landscape, an environment that is noticeably changing and is in danger of being lost to future generations.”
A series of mixed-media monoprints referencing the environmental and cautionary themes explored in the exhibition will also be on view in the Cardinale Project Room. These works were created by Dillbohner as part of her recent residency at the ICA’s Print Center.
 
Christel Dillbohner: Ice Floe is funded in part by Applied Materials Excellence in the Arts Grants, a program of Arts Council Silicon Valley. Additional support provided by the James Irvine Foundation.

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The annual Monotype Marathon exhibition is on view for three weeks at the ICA and culminates with a silent auction fundraising event on the last day of the show.
The Monotype Marathon event begins with an intensive weekend of art making by more than seventy-five professional artists in printmaking studios throughout the Bay Area. These artists are invited by the ICA to produce a number of monotypes during the marathon printmaking weekend event. The ICA selects the best work produced by each of the artists to showcase in the exhibition and to offer for sale in the silent auction. Proceeds raised from the auction go toward the ICA’s exhibitions and educational programs.
The ICA seeks support for the Monotype Marathon from its members and from the community by selling $300 sponsorships that enable artists to participate in the printmaking workshops. Each sponsorship donation serves as the opening bid on any of the works in the auction. All Monotype Marathon sponsors are guaranteed to receive a unique work on paper from the auction.
The monotype is a one-of-a-kind work on paper. It is a painterly form of printmaking requiring ink, a surface on which to print, paper and a press. The artist uses a variety of tools to apply the ink and sometimes adds collage, transfers, fabric and other materials.

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Lift Off is an extension of the ICA’s commitment to provide meaningful opportunities for emerging artists to present their work to the public. The exhibition marks the culmination of two to three years of intensive investigation by students in the Fine Arts program at SJSU and launches the graduates into the next chapter of their artistic pursuits. Featuring sculpture, photography, painting, and new media, this diverse group of art makers and thinkers reflect the cultural vibrancy of our community.
Exhibiting artists include: Thomas Asmuth, Randy Bricco, Andrew Hedges, Kathryn Hetzner, Xiaoqing Jing, Margo Jones, Pantea Karimi, Wayne Madsen, Victor Malagon, Greg Mettler, Donna Pettit, Michael Risch, Dina Ropele, Virginia Westphal Uhl, and Jonathan Yao. In conjunction with the exhibition, the MFA graduates will publish a catalogue of their work with essays by Art History Master Degree candidates Sally Sumida, Celeyce Matthews and Jennifer De La Cruz.

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The ICA presents Lewis deSoto: BEFORE AFTER, the first comprehensive exhibition of work by mid-career conceptual artist Lewis deSoto. The show includes a selection of works on paper, photography, sculpture, sound pieces, and an immersive, chocolate-scented installation entitled End of Desire.
Lewis deSoto has been exploring personal narrative through his artwork for over 20 years using an extraordinary range of media. “The ICA is excited to shine a light on the incredible depth and breadth of deSoto’s work and pay tribute to an artist at the top of his game,” says Cathy Kimball, ICA Executive Director and Chief Curator. “Gallery visitors will be awestruck by the creative range of the work and the unique immersive nature of the exhibition experience.”
DeSoto’s multimedia installations combine sound, light, video, space, and sculpture elements and are site-specific or oriented toward making a complete environment. His conceptual artwork utilizes automobiles, inflatables, electronics, photography, wood and metal construction. Two particularly intriguing works in the exhibition include a sound piece and a large chocolate-scented installation. The sound piece titled Lament, uses the acoustics of the ICA’s exit corridor to create an immersive sound-filled environment created by the artist’s collaboration with opera singer Erin Neff singing excerpts from the Hermann Hesse poem “(Klage) Lament.” The large-scale End of Desire installation includes a long wooden pier surrounded by cocoa bean shells spread out on the floor, creating an organic landscape. Standing on the platform, enveloped by the potent smell of chocolate, participants are left to ponder the nature of desire. This work follows earlier projects that used fragrance to communicate the artist’s narrative.
Three sculptures that pay homage to deSoto’s father as well as a series of works on paper based on the 1920 novella by Herman Hesse titled “Klingsor’s Last Summer,” will be presented in the Cardinale Project Room.  A series of photographs called BASHO (meaning “place” in Japanese) represents deSoto’s first one-person photography exhibition in 1978. And using the paintings of Johannes Vermeer as inspiration for The Restoration, deSoto remodeled a garage to resemble a Vermeer interior. In it, he placed figures in contemporary and 17th century period garb surrounding a 1964 Pontiac Grand Prix to stage a scene that floats between photographic, painterly and cinematic forms.
DeSoto’s conceptually driven artwork brilliantly combines the past and present, and posits about the future. Culling from a range of influences including anthropology, sociology, history, religion, literature, music and personal memory, he utilizes a variety of media to provide commentary on his personal histories as they apply to contemporary culture.
Lewis deSoto was born in San Bernardino, CA and received his MFA at the Claremont Graduate University. His work is included in numerous public collections including the Des Moines Art Center, the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, the Museum of Modern Art, San Jose Museum of Art, The Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, and the Seattle Art Museum. DeSoto lives in Napa and is a professor of photography at San Francisco State University.

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The San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) announces the exclusive California presentation of Manuel Neri's The Figure in Relief, a comprehensive exhibition of painted sculptures, maquettes and works on paper by this preeminent Bay Area-based sculptor. The show includes work from the past 25 years that focuses on Neri's use of the fragmentary and partial figure.
For more than five decades, Neri has been exploring the human figure in his art. He is known internationally for his life-size sculptures in plaster, bronze, ceramic and marble as well as for his association with the Bay Area figurative movement during the 1950s and 1960s. The reliefs recall ancient Greek temple pediments and metopes as well as Medieval altarpiece carvings and Renaissance relief sculpture. The carefully curated exhibition showcases Neri's unique ability to depict the figural form in various media.
"The ICA is truly honored to present this magnificent body of work by one of today's most celebrated sculptors," says Cathy Kimball, ICA Executive Director and Chief Curator. "We encourage everyone to visit the ICA to experience this stunning collection of figurative sculptures and be inspired by the mastery of the medium achieved by this living master."
A 196-page monograph accompanies the exhibition and provides comprehensive documentation of this unique series of sculptures. An opening reception and catalogue signing by the artist will be held at the ICA on November 7th from 6pm to 8pm. On November 13th at 7pm the ICA's monthly art discussion forum, Talking Art will address Neri's 25-year teaching career at UC Davis and the influence he's had on hundreds of artists. The session is entitled Figuratively Speaking: Tracing the Influence of a Teacher, a Program, A Movement and a Place, and the panel includes Bay Area artists Robert Brady, Christopher Brown and Fred Snyder.
Neri's work in plaster, ceramic, bronze and stone have merited him the 2006 Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Sculpture Center in Hamilton, New Jersey. He will also be receiving the 2008 Bay Area Treasure Award from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art on November 12th. Manuel Neri was born in 1930 in the San Joaquin Valley to Mexican immigrants and has lived in the Bay Area since 1950. Neri studied at the California College of Arts & Crafts and the California School of Fine Arts (now the San Francisco Art Institute), where he also taught from 1959 to 1965. He joined the faculty of the University of California, Davis in 1965 and retired from teaching in 1990.

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The Painted Room creates the illusion of a life-size living room suspended in space that oscillates between representation and abstraction. Comprised of colorful splotches of paint that cling to clear hanging monofilament, this floating sculpture represents Dorosz’ interest in the analogous properties of paint and the digital pixel in an age that is lured by the mysteries of virtual reality. Up close, the viewer is able to see the individual components of paint, but cannot comprehend the overall imagery. However, with distance, the paint chips dissolve into a kind of 3-D pointillist sculpture consisting of a couch, tables, lamps, and wall shelves.
“In addition to the visual treat, gallery visitors will have fun becoming a part of the work by simply walking around the space,” notes Cathy Kimball, ICA Executive Director and Chief Curator. “Moving around the piece, you appear as sliced fragments through the vertical interruptions of the hanging paint splotches to other viewers on the opposite sides, creating apparitions of a human presence within the room.”
Canadian-born Dorosz maintains a studio practice in San Franciso and is a full-time instructor at the Academy of Art University. Dorosz graduated with an MFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art & Design in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and a BFA from Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec. In 2003 he won the Royal Bank of Canada’s New Painting competition. His work is in public and private collections throughout The United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom.

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The San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) is proud to present Eureka!, an exhibition featuring the 2005-2007 recipients of the Eureka Fellowship Award. A remarkable sampling of the vitality and distinctive character of the Bay Area's visual arts community, Eureka! will be on view from August 1 through September 20, 2008.
Sponsored by the San Francisco-based Fleishhacker Foundation, the Eureka Fellowship Award is the Bay Area's largest cash prize for individual artists. Since 1986, Eureka Fellowships have recognized artistic excellence through these one-year awards. The awards are not tied to creating specific projects, but rather, help artists continue making art by supporting more uninterrupted creative time.
The ICA is honored to collaborate with the Fleishhacker Foundation on the presentation of this exhibition and the publication of an accompanying catalogue. Eureka! reflects the ICA's shared commitment with the Fleishhacker Foundation to support Bay Area artists. The twelve fellowship winners were among 142 artists who applied from a candidate pool created by 60 local visual arts organizations, serving as nominators. The exhibition will include work by fellowship recipients Chester Arnold, Thomas Chang, Amy Franceschini, Paul Kos, George Kuchar, Josh Lazcano, Mads Lynnerup, Lourdes Portillo, Rigo 23, Claire Rojas, Philip Ross, and Christopher Sollars. Their creativity represents a wide range of the region's artistic talent, with work that is enormously varied in approach, subject and medium and reflects a broad cultural and stylistic diversity.
The extraordinary talent of these recipients was recognized by a panel of three nationally-known arts professionals who judged the artists' works, including Bill Horrigan, Media Arts Curator, Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus; Eungie Joo, Gallery Director and Curator, The Gallery at REDCAT, Los Angeles; and Lydia Yee, Senior Curator, The Bronx Museum of the Arts. The panel met in November 2004 at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

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Created by artist duo Nora Ligorano and Marshall Reese (Ligorano/Reese), Crater Bay Area is a drawing contest in which artists and non-artists alike will sketch the moon in a competition to win deeds of land on the moon. The contest takes place at the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) from May 30 - August 2. A ten-foot scale model of the moon will be installed in the middle of the gallery to serve as the subject of the drawing contest. Visitors may sketch their unique moonscapes using either traditional drawing materials or digital tools. Each participant will have up to 30 minutes to create a drawing that will hang on the gallery walls for the duration of the exhibition. Additionally, these images will be hosted digitally on the ICA's website and in "Second Life." The winning submissions will be selected by a panel of esteemed judges, including artists, art critics, technologists, curators, and local celebrities. An award ceremony will convene on the evening of Friday, August 1 and the celebrated artists will receive certified deeds to a plot of land on the moon.
Ligorano/Reese's interactive exhibition explores mankind's enduring fascination with the moon, interest to identify and understand the unknown. Crater Bay Area also investigates imagination and the implications of virtual space. The project sets up a playful stage of engagement that relies on the creativity of the audience to make the images that will ultimately hang on the walls. It cleverly recontextualizes the storied tradition of the plein air landscape to include the depiction of a man-made reproduction of the lunar surface, while also evaluating the success of traditional hand drawing versus computer-aided design. In addition, the prized deed to land on the moon and the exhibition's simultaneous existence in the virtual world highlight the scarcity of affordable Bay Area real estate in "real life."
Crater Bay Area is supported in part by a generous grant from Applied Materials. Additional support from Epson America, Adobe Systems Inc., and CADRE New Media Lab at San Jose State University.

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The Word on the Street, neon signs by Ray Beldner, is an installation in the gallery's front windows at 560 South First Street. The Word on the Street is part of the ICA's "Night Moves" installation series, an innovative program that gives the ICA a nighttime presence and animates the downtown cultural landscape by showcasing after-dark programming in the gallery's windows.
Ray Beldner uses language from homeless signs to make poetic neon versions that reflect sentiments of our own shortcomings, losses and desires. An expert in appropriation and unexpected collaborations, Beldner's work in part pays homage to Bruce Nauman's famous neon sign, The True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths. Responding to this statement, Beldner reveals human truths written by homeless individuals he has met on the street. Twisting what one would expect in a neon window display, Beldner's signs cleverly reflect on what it means to be an artist and a human.
Born in San Francisco, Beldner received a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and an MFA from Mills College in Oakland, California. He has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions both nationally and internationally and his work can be found in many public and private collections including the Federal Reserve Board, Washington D.C., the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Arizona, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the Oakland Museum of California, and the San Jose Museum of Art.

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Monotype Marathon 2008 The Monotype Marathon is an intensive weekend of workshops held in professional printmaking studios throughout the Bay Area and led by accomplished monotype artists. During the workshops, artists produce a number of prints, the best of which are included in an exhibition at the ICA. At the end of the three-week show, the prints in the exhibition are auctioned. All proceeds help support the ICA.
The Sponsor donates $300 to the ICA enabling an artist to participate in the Marathon. At the end of the exhibition, sponsors participate in a silent auction of the monotypes with their $300 donation serving as their opening bid on the monotype of their choice.
The Patron underwrites two artists for $600 and is eligible to bid on two prints at the auction. Patron sponsors are acknowledged in the gallery and on the exhibition announcement.
The Artist invites a sponsor to underwrite his/her participation in the Marathon or the artist may self-sponsor. Potential sponsors include galleries, collectors, vendors, family and friends. During the four-hour workshop, the artist produces up to seven prints. Workshop directors choose one print for exhibition and auction. The artist retains all other prints.
The Monotype is a one-of-a-kind print created by applying ink to a plate and then running the plate through a press to transfer the image onto paper. The artist uses a variety of tools to apply ink and sometimes adds collage effects with transfers, fabric, and other materials. The result is spontaneous and expressive.

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Throughout its history, the ICA has been dedicated to providing meaningful opportunities for emerging artists and Lift Off is an extension of this commitment. The exhibition not only marks the culmination of two to three years of intense investigation in the Fine Art programs at San Jose State University but also launches the artists in the next chapter of their artistic pursuits. From sculpture to photography and painting to new media, the artwork challenges, inspires and reflects on the ideas and culture of our time.
This years graduates include: Colleen Arakaki, Susan Burgers, Ben Eberle, Mark Fox-Morgan, Benjamin Hunt, Ethan Miller, Andy Muonio, Amanda Smith, Gabe Toci, Ashley Vander Meeden, Tammy Jo Wilson and Bryan Yerian. In conjunction with the exhibition, the graduates will produce a color catalogue that includes essays by Art History Master Degree candidates Ross Borgida, Fredrick Hubbs, Colette M. Simanello, Sally Sumida as well as SJSU faculty Dore Bowen and Stan Welsh.

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The work in This Show Needs You actively engages audiences in the process of creating. Evoking Joseph Beuys's exclamation that "everyone is an artist," Michael Smit's ongoing conversational piece How Have You Been an Artist Today? provocatively asks what it means to create. It is in this same spirit that Linda Montano, a seminal figure in contemporary feminist performance art, invites the audience to either "sit down with her in silence" or "sit down and receive Art/Life/Laughter Counseling" during her performance Re-Seeing: Being Blindfolded in California; 7 hours/ 4 days. Montano will also conduct a crash course in performance art called, You Too Are a Performance Artist of Your Life: A Workshop with Linda M. Montano.
Collaborators and lovers Elizabeth Stephens and Annie Sprinkle will present Love Art Laboratory Bridal Party, an experiment in exploring love as art. During the course of this seven-year performance art piece, now in its fourth year, the artists have a performance art wedding each year in collaboration with their guests, other artist and various communities. Stephens and Sprinkle will exhibit ephemera from their first three weddings including dresses, invitations, and gifts made by friends. In conjunction with the UCSC conference, the couple will renew their vows on May 17, at the UCSC campus. Additionally, the ICA will host a Bridal Shower for the couple.
Collaborators Ted Purves and Susanne Cockrell with Joseph McHenry, will rely on the participation of local gardeners to realize their installation Lemon Everlasting Backyard Battery. Inspired by San Jose's agricultural history, Cockrell and Purves will collect garden-grown lemons from the area and preserve them during the exhibition. Rows of the yellow jarred fruits will be displayed and Cockrell and Purves will provide opportunities for individuals to share recipes and stories that involve cooking with lemons. A lemon-infused picnic will convene on May 2, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. During the last week of the exhibition individuals may take home a jar of lemons.
Other projects continue the creative engagement. Harrell Fletcher and Miranda July give assignments to visitors to complete and post online in their interactive web project Learning to Love You More. Christian Jankowski's work involves collaborations with strangers. Lori Gordon's text paintings ask, "What color does your body need?" and Sara Thacher enlists neighbors and businesses to host and curate The Distributed Exhibition.

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The exhibiting artists in The Space Between include Freddy Chandra, Brent Hallard, Linn Meyers, Mel Prest, Gay Outlaw, and Nancy White.
While the work ranges in media (painting, drawing, sculpture, and new media), each artist pays close attention to the subtle and obvious qualities of the visual experience. For instance, the colorful hand-painted lines in Mel Prest's paintings seem to vibrate upon prolonged observation, compelling the eye to refocus its gaze while exploring the content of the paintings. In similar fashion, a palpable pulse emerges from Linn Meyers' large scale wall drawings. Meyers methodically draws lines and dots to produce swirling optical fields. Using the precision of geometric forms, Nancy White creates intimate amplifications of light and color. On hand-pigmented paper, triangles seemingly dissolve and reappear in space. What emerges is an area of visual activity where the distinction between what is painted and what they eye construes is elusive. Freddy Chandra's site-specific installations examine the fleeting experiences that take place on the periphery of our visual world. The surfaces of Gay Outlaw's minimal sculptures shift and undulate to disrupt the visual senses. The artist utilizes simple forms to create visually complex rhythms of pattern, color, light and shadow.
The Space Between is sponsored in part by a generous gift from the Myra Reinhard Family Foundation.

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The Landscape of War exhibition illustrates the complex politics of war and our relationship to it. Curated by Anne Veh and largely inspired by the writings of Rebecca Solnit, this significantly relevant exhibition expresses a message that is both haunting and confrontational, challenging the viewer to fully consider the multi-faceted effects of war. Many of the artists in this exhibition provide essential and poignant political critique to inspire thoughtful dialogue. Enrique Chagoya re-maps the world in RoadMap, depicting the U.S. disproportionately larger than any other country. Michael Arcega cleverly plays with language and materials that are loaded with political associations. His sculptures of hand grenades and weapons titled Terrorice are made out of rice, the grain that the US gives as aid to war-torn and developing countries.
Pamela Wilson-Ryckman's delicately painted watercolors lure the viewer into a seemingly beautiful landscape only to reveal volatile political gatherings, collapsed buildings in ruin, and apocalyptic street scenes. In contrast to these catastrophic visions, Fanny Retsek symbolically counts each death in Iraq and each gallon of oil she consumes with individual hatch marks on paper. By making the exploits of war personal, Retsek implicates herself in the world events. Michael Light's ongoing aerial photographic investigation, Rancho San Pedro 04.28.06, exposes the infrastructure of a culture dependent on oil. The images unveil views of oil extraction, refining, global shipping, automobile transportation, and land use in Los Angeles.
Wartime not only changes the physical environment but also creates a culture of fear, corruption and secrecy. Mark Klett's series of photographs entitled The Wendover Project, documents the forgotten and dilapidated landscape that once served as the secret training ground for WWII bomber crews, including the 509th Composite Group that dropped the atomic bomb. Christoph Draeger further illustrates the catastrophic consequences of the bomb with a puzzle that depicts the devastated landscape of Nagasaki. Artist Trevor Paglen provides a glimpse into a world of secrecy with his ongoing investigation and documentation of secret military programs. Using astronomical equipment, Paglen's large-scale photographs are taken from a distance of up to 22 miles and depict Area 51, an off-limits military installation in the Nevada desert.
The Landscape of War is sponsored in part by Deborah and Andy Rappaport.

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As part of Montalvo Art Center’s year-long program entitled Iraq: Reframe, the ICA presents Open Shutters Iraq. Open Shutters Iraq was created by Eugenie Dolberg, a British-based photojournalist who will be in residence at Montalvo during the month of November 2007. In December 2006, Ms. Dolberg brought together 12 Iraqi women with the intent to have them document their lives through photographs and the written word. During a three-week time frame, these women of diverse ages and backgrounds were trained in photography by Ms. Dolberg and also encouraged to trace the trajectory of their own lives through words. She then sent them back to their individual towns to take photographs and create journals that would be the basis for the Open Shutters Iraq exhibition. After six weeks, the group reconvened to share their images and stories. The resulting exhibition consists of a selection of the hundreds of photographs taken by these women, as well as journal entries, brief biographies and photo captions that explain the circumstances of each photograph. The content of Open Shutters Iraq reveals the deteriorating landscape of a country at war as well as the poignant portraits of some of its citizens. Through the eyes of these twelve women and one six year old girl, the exhibition also reflects some of the harsh realities that face civilian women living in war-torn Iraq today.

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<a href="uploaded/files/2007_lift_off_exhibition_guide.pdf" target="_blank">Exhibition Guide</a>
Artist Websites: <a href="http://jasonadkins.net/" target="_blank">Jason Adkins</a> <a href="http://www.juliabradshaw.com/" target="_blank">Julia Bradshaw</a> <a href="http://www.jonathanbrilliant.com/" target="_blank">Jonathan Brilliant</a> <a href="http://ccastellanos.com/" target="_blank">Carlos Castellanos</a> <a href="http://shaychurch.com/index.php" target="_blank">Shay Church</a> <a href="http://morgankonn.com/index.html" target="_blank">Morgan Konn</a> <a href="http://www.slowe.org/" target="_blank">Sarah Lowe</a> <a href="http://www.owenpremore.com/Owen_Premore.html" target="_blank">Owen Premore</a> <a href="http://www.andrewareilly.com/" target="_blank">Andrew Reilly</a> <a href="http://jamesshurter.com/index.html" target="_blank">Jim Shurter</a> <a href="http://carlaturturici.com/2/Artist.asp?ArtistID=23123&Akey=PQFJP8B4" target="_blank">Carla Turturici</a>

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For thirteen years, artists throughout the Bay Area have been gathering at ICA-facilitated workshops during one weekend in spring in a "marathon" of printmaking. Working in groups of five or six, and led by a professional printer, artists whose primary media is often painting, sculpture, ceramics, or digital media, come together to practice the art of the monotype.
What is a monotype?
The monotype, often referred to as the "painterly print," is a one-of-a-kind print created by manipulating ink on a Plexiglas or metal plate, and then transferring the image to paper via an etching press. The resulting prints are characterized by an overall sense of spontaneity and expressiveness. Using brushes, brayers, fingers, rags, Q-tips, and other assorted tools, this immediacy of process is translated to the finished print. Whether the artist chooses to work in the subtractive method of inking the plate and wiping the ink away to create an image, or the additive approach of painting the image directly onto the plate, the pleasure of making monotypes comes when the completed plate is run through the press, transferring the ink onto paper.
This year's exhibition will culminate in a silent auction on Saturday, June 23.
The prints will be auctioned to the more than 100 Monotype Marathon individual sponsors, who made the artists' participation possible through their donations. Proceeds from the auction will benefit the ICA's exhibition and education programs. Only the sponsors who underwrite the artists' participation in this year's Monotype Marathon are able to participate in the auction; however the public is welcome to attend the reception.
The event is a collaborative process:
The Monotype Marathon is made possible by support from throughout the community. Workshop leaders donate their time and expertise and the workshops are staffed by volunteers from the participating educational institutions and the art community. According to Executive Director, Cathy Kimball, "It's a win/win proposition - the artists love the creative collaboration of the workshops, the sponsors get an original work of art for $250, and the ICA raises more than $35,000 for its programs."

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NextNew2006 will feature the technology-based work of Anthony Discenza, Kota Ezawa, Ken Goldberg, Ed Osborn, and Julia Page who all accepted our invitation to provide a visionary look at what the next new trends, movements, and/or ideas will be through the work of five emerging artists. Their work will be presented with the work of Nate Boyce, Elise Irving, Daniel Massey, Joe McKay, and Stephanie Syjuco.
NextNew2006 will open in conjunction with the ISEA2006 Symposium on Electronic Art and the ZeroOne San Jose Global Festival of Art on the Edge, both of which will take place in San Jose from August 7 – 13. The ISEA Symposium is a prestigious international art and technology conference that is sponsored biennially by the Netherlands-based Inter-Society for Electronic Art (ISEA). Every other year, cities around the world bid to host the symposium and this year it will be held in San Jose. ZeroOne is a milestone festival that will be held biennially in San Jose, making the work of the most innovative contemporary artists in the world accessible to an audience that is expected to come from around the world.
In combination with NextNew2006, on Saturday, August 12th, the night of the city-wide ZeroOne Festival closing party, the ICA will present A Painting Performance, a multi-media, interactive street event by new media artist Clive McCarthy. Mr. McCarthy will create a dynamic architectural portrait and transform new technologies into a relevant and exciting experience. His work is a unique combination of cutting-edge technology and traditional painting and music, performed in front of a live audience.
The NextNew2006: Art and Technology exhibition at the ICA and the accompanying Clive McCarthy performance raise significant and relevant questions for the viewing audience regarding issues of technology’s place and impact on contemporary art and culture. They are unique additions to the art and technology activities that will be taking place throughout the city during the Symposium and Festival. We anticipate that the regional, national and international audiences will continue to be attracted to the exhibition beyond the week of August 7th. NextNew2006 and documentation from A Painting Performance will continue to provide the chance to see cutting edge technology-based art made by some of the most distinguished and promising new media artists in the Bay Area. It will also provide the participating artists with an extraordinary opportunity to have their work viewed by an international community of technology innovators and enthusiasts.
This exhibition is made possible in part by grants from Applied Materials Excellence in the Arts: a program of Arts Council Silicon Valley and from the Fleishhacker Foundation.

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THE MONOTYPE MARATHON is a weekend of workshops, held in professional printmaking studios throughout the Bay Area, and led by accomplished monotype artists. During the workshops, artists produce a number of prints, the best of which is exhibited at the ICA. At the end of the show, the prints are auctioned. All proceeds benefit the ICA.
THE ARTIST invites a sponsor to underwrite his/her participation in the Marathon or the artist may self-sponsor. During the four hour workshop, the artist produces up to seven prints. Workshop directors choose one print for exhibition and auction. The artist retains all other prints.
THE SPONSOR donates $250 to the ICA enabling an artist to participate in the Marathon. At the end of the exhibition, sponsors participate in a silent auction of the monotypes with their $250 donation serving as their first bid on the monotype of their choice.
THE PATRON underwrites two artists for $500 and is eligible to bid on two prints at the auction. Patron sponsors are acknowledged in the gallery.
THE WORKSHOPS Each workshop is four hours long. Artists should indicate their first and second choices for workshops and times on the registration form. Monotype Marathon organizers will try to accommodate preferences, but this cannot be guaranteed. Sponsors and artists will be notified of their assigned workshop location, date and time.

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An abstract narrative based on the theme of apocalypse, Was and Is Not and Is to Come will mark Waterston's largest site-specific project to date. His depiction will be played out across all the walls in the gallery, creating a continuous and cinematographic sweep. The viewer will be required to walk from one end of the gallery to the other and back again, in order to fully engage with the narrative. As Waterston describes it, the narrative will begin with "a fantastic nocturnal forest… which will then be disrupted by a beautiful and horrific deluge of detritus. The image will proceed from the ordered to the disordered, from harmony to disharmony, from accord to discord." The ICA Project Room will feature Waterston's sketches, small paintings and notes created in the development of Was and Is Not and Is to Come as well as reference and source materials.
The inspiration for much of Waterston's work comes from his in-depth investigations into such diverse areas as botany, Renaissance painting techniques, and both eastern and western religious and philosophical beliefs. Through his long standing interest in the genre of landscape painting, he explores the intersection of representation and abstraction. With a background in hyper-realist landscape, Waterston's most recent work explores the fantastic landscape, "leaving the natural world behind in order to create abstract, other-worldly spaces populated by non-representational forms..." In his most current projects he seeks to create visual narratives within large-scale or multi-panel abstract paintings.

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Lift Off will launch the artwork of eighteen new MFA graduates. Work will include the complete gamut of media, including photography, sculpture, painting and new media installations. The work of emerging artists is not only innovative and fresh, but is a glimpse into the upcoming trends in the art of tomorrow. The MFA program at San Jose state has a reputation for craftsmanship in all media, pushing its students to explore cutting edge tools and materials to present work that is rich in content. The students are encouraged to develop their work in the context of art historical precedent as well as contemporary theories and climate. San Jose State University is also internationally renowned for its strong program in digital art, known as CADRE.
The artists in Lift Off are: Pilar Aguero-Esparza, Justin Amrhein, John Bruneau, Martins Bluzma, Adam Caldwell, Richard C. Clapp, Sara Cole, Vera Fainshtein, Kanako Ota, Tai Pomara, Kevin Powers, Cynthia Siegel, Shelby Smith, Keith Southern, Skyler Thomas, Terry Thompson, Gaku Watanabe and Michael Weisert.

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Ramos Rivera has created a body of work notable for its emotional and visual intensity and highly individualized iconography. Through the use of brilliant color and a highly personal symbology, Ramos Rivera has created his own language that is written throughout his paintings, monotypes, and collages. All of the works in Ramos Rivera’s career represent a special confluence of his cultural past with his present day environment. His work follows the thread of 20th-century Mexican painting combined with that of Bay Area abstract painting. The resulting cross-cultural hybrid makes Ramos Rivera’s abstractions stand alone.
A master printmaker and collagist, Ramos Rivera’s works on paper equal the scope and intensity of his works on canvas. In his monotypes, his skill as a colorist is readily apparent as he builds up translucent layers of color that create an illusion of depth. The result is atmospheric sensual fields of color juxtaposed by his vocabulary of linear markings.
Gustavo Ramos Rivera was born in Coahuila, Mexico and immigrated to San Francisco in 1969. He has exhibited extensively since 1974 in the United States, Europe, and Latin America. In 1992 he received a Fleishacker Foundation Eureka Fellowship. His work is held in the collections of the San Jose Museum of Art, the Achenbach Foundation for the Graphic Arts, San Francisco, and the Phoenix Art Museum, Arizona, among others. Hackett-Freedman Gallery began representing Ramos Rivera and his work in January 2004.

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If you Google “hair,” you come up with 38,300,000 entries, all but a fraction of which promote the multi-million dollar hair care industry. As a society we are obsessed with hair – cutting it, growing it, perming it, coloring it, moussing, shaving, curling and straightening it. Many of our ideas about nature and beauty, gender and sexuality, individuality and conformity converge with symbolic significance around society’s attitudes towards hair.
During the past decade, there has been a growing fascination among contemporary artists with all manner of bodily experiences. Increasingly, the body has been used not only as the subject in artwork, but as the medium as well. Menstrual blood, nail clippings and skin have all been used to create works that examine the human body in every possible way. And hair is no exception.
The tradition of using hair in art was prevalent during the Victorian era. The hair of the deceased was often clipped off at the funeral parlor and incorporated into mourning jewelry: necklaces, bracelets and rings. Besides jewelry, mourners would often weave decorative and complex wall hangings that were used as memorials. This sentimental romanticizing of hair fell out of fashion in the early 1900s.
The artists in Hair Raising use hair in a variety of ways to symbolize and explore issues of mortality, fetishism, social heterogeneity and social differences. Others are concerned specifically with hair’s physicality and materiality. Many of them incorporate it directly into their art and others depict hair through drawings and photographs.
Artists in this exhibition include Renee Billingslea, Rosana Castrillo Diaz, Wrenay Gomez Charlton, Diane Jacobs, Charles Linder, Victoria May, Paula Santiago, John Slepian, Valeska Soares, Lava Thomas, Lucrecia Troncoso and Kerry Vander Meer.

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we just telling stories is about the Medea Project Theater for incarcerated women, and the process that enables this theater ensemble to take a group of incarcerated women to a place where they are able tell their often painful and disturbing stories to sold out audiences and do nothing less than rock the house. Many of these women inmates have forgotten how to dream after having spent too many years lost in a narcotic fog. During the process of building a stage play they begin to reclaim a sense of self worth and the ability to dream again. The telling and retelling of tragic personal stories become the way they gain a new perspective on life and what they have lived through. There is a power in telling a personal story. This work will let us witness this power in action. Many of the women have clearly stated that it was during their involvement with the Medea Project, that they felt, for the first time a sense of self worth. Hopefully they will retain this feeling once the curtain has closed and hopefully at the end of the film the viewer will have a deeper understanding and knowledge of the numerous and nameless women and mothers that are imprisoned each and every year.

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ICA

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Everything Is In Motion

One Thing Leads to Another

Tim Craighead: Dos Mundos

31st Annual Art Auction Exhibition

Hanna Hannah: Frames of War

Lift Off: SJSU MFA Graduate Show

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